Dear All,
A serious thanks to the organizers for taking on the task of collating and concatenating and compiling.
During my week away, I fleshed out some ideas for the Winedale 2010 reunion "plot" plan. This follows the “argument of comedy” narrative arc idea, in a 5-act sort of way. Some of the scenes aren’t on the official list (SORRY ALL!!!), so I underlined them and totally understand if they’re inadmissible at this point. My own choices for 10 scenes are in bold. So this is both a vote for ten scenes and a more detailed version of the the suggestion I sent in a couple weeks ago. It works well with most of the other organizing ideas, particularly with Clayton's tavern setting idea and with Kathy and Jayne's transitions mode idea. One advantage to the comedy-arc plotting mechanism is that while the big pieces (beginning, middle, end) are sort of fixed, the rest of it is quite flexible, even up to the point at which we begin working on scenes, because you can stick most scenes--even non-Shakespeare scenes--almost anywhere.
1. Three or four scenes to establish dramatic conflict. The easy / obvious choices here are senex characters—Malvolio, Egeus, Leontes, Lear, Shylock, Angelo, and maybe Richard 3 / Gloucester. From the official list, I’d nominate AS YOU LIKE IT 1.2 (wrestling scene) or
COMEDY of ERRORS 3.1 (Ephesus locked out of house scene), though three longer scenes not on the list would work probably better (they’re increasingly disturbring):
·LOVE’S LABOR’S LOST 1.1
·MIDSUMMER 1.1
·LEAR 1.1
…followed by
·MACBETH 3.2-3.4, Lady M “Is Banquo gone from court” through the murder and the banquet scene (about 230 lines)
2. Transition scenes, some of the drunk scenes, some of the “purpose of playing” / meta-theater scenes, and some of the history material:
·HAMLET 2.2 Entrance of players, First Player speech
·TWELFTH NIGHT 2.3 “Approach, Sir Andrew” drunks scene interrupted by Malvolio (170 lines, 5 people)*done in 2005, so, alternatively:
·TWELFTH NIGHT 3.4 sword-fighting scene, which opens with “mad” Malvolio, cross-gartered, and goes all the way to Viola’s hopeful “Ne named by brother Sebastian” moment.
·HENRY V “O for a Muse of Fire”
·HAMLET 3.2 Advice to the players (to line 40, “Go make you ready”)
·RICHARD II 4.1 Deposition (323 lines, 10 or 11 speaking parts)
·ROMEO AND JULIET Queen Mab
3. The heart of Shakespeare across genres. A number of scenes might work here, but I like best the idea of
·KING LEAR 2.2 (the original list has 2.4, from Bevington, but most editions, including Norton and Arden 2 and 3, have 2.2), beginning with Kent in the stocks and ending with Cornwall, “shut up your doors.” A long scene of 470+ lines, but one with lots of parts, and it’s the heart of the play!
4. Green Worlds: fun, drunkenness, misrule, songs, and the promise of redemption to come.
·AS YOU LIKE IT 2.5 Ducdame
·TWO GENTS 4.1 Outlaws / Pirates
·MACBETH Porter Scene (2.3, lines 1-45)
·TWELFTH NIGHT 3.4 sword-fighting scene, which opens with “mad” Malvolio, cross-gartered, and goes all the way to Viola’s hopeful “Ne named by brother Sebastian” moment.
·MEASURE FOR MEASURE 3.1, “Be absolute for death” through the bed- trick plan with the Duke/Friar (though we could stop about line 200 … no need for the exposition that follows, really, and by line 200, we’ve established Isabella’s redemptive potential)
5. Redemptive endings. Happy bits from any of the plays, but I’d nominate as the final moment the entire last section of
·WINTER’S TALE 5.2-5.3
…which covers ground similar to Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Tempest, but which seems to refine or perfect similar gestures in those